Someone Is Lying

by Jenny Blackhurst

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Miranda demanded.

  ‘Photographers,’ Marcus shouted. He appeared back in the kitchen. ‘Come on, through here.’

  ‘How did they get in?’ Miranda shrilled. ‘They aren’t supposed to be able to get in!’

  No one replied but Felicity knew exactly how she was feeling. A few weeks ago they’d thought Severn Oaks was a safe haven, impenetrable and protective. How easy it had been to breach their safety all along – and not just physically.

  Marcus led Felicity, Miranda and Alex into the snug, Karla following behind, with Zachary, Brandon and the twins in tow.

  ‘Why have I never seen this room?’ Felicity asked, looking around in wonder.

  ‘It’s the secret room, Mummy,’ Amalie told her knowingly. ‘Sometimes Zach lets us watch films in here with hot chocolate. It’s his favourite room.’

  Karla looked at her son. ‘Is that true, Zach?’

  Zach’s cheeks flushed and he nodded. Marcus and Brandon were deep in conversation, their voices low while they discussed the severity of the situation. Alex was on the phone to his own father who was at their house, sitting up with Logan and Charity. Karla could hear him instructing the army veteran to check the doors and side gates were locked and close all the curtains, not to scare the children.

  ‘God only knows what Jack and the kids are going through,’ Felicity was muttering to herself.

  Mollie handed her a miniature bag of Skittles to open. She pulled the top apart and handed it back. Mollie looked as though she’d won the lottery and started shoving Amalie, encouraging her to try the same trick.

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t listening. Maybe he decided it was too painful.’

  ‘He’ll find out, though, in the papers tomorrow,’ Karla said. ‘And the police will have to tell him, won’t they?’

  ‘He’ll hardly be able to miss you all being locked up for obstruction of justice,’ Brandon said.

  Karla frowned at him and gestured her head towards the younger children.

  ‘Will we all be charged?’ Miranda groaned. ‘This is awful, just not knowing.’

  ‘Max said his dad had been to see an estate agent,’ Brandon said. ‘They’re selling up anyway.’

  ‘I don’t blame him. I don’t see how anything’s going to be the same around here now.’

  ‘Will you get in trouble, Mum? For, you know, tampering with evidence or whatever?’

  Karla nodded. ‘Probably, Bran, yes. But I’m still glad it all came out. I’m glad all of it came out. Perhaps now we can move forward.’

  They sat in silence, Felicity and Karla holding hands, Brandon’s arm around his mum, and Felicity holding onto Amalie with her other arm for dear life.

  Zach sat in the corner of the snug, colouring with Mollie on his lap, while Miranda looked to be sleeping on Alex – although they knew she wasn’t, because every now and then a small sob would come from the direction of his chest.

  Marcus got to his feet several times to pace, always sitting back down with a defeated look on his face.

  No one spoke for what seemed like hours, until the beeping of a text message broke the stillness.

  ‘It’s Mary-Beth,’ Felicity said. ‘They’ve found her.’

  75

  The campsite was lit up like a fairground, full of flashing blue and red lights from police cars and ambulances. This was no cursory check now, no simple knocking on doors and showing Mary-Beth’s photo. The police officers attending had been briefed: be ready to find a body.

  Tristan Patterson had been dead for over three weeks. If he had left Mary-Beth King tied up in one of these caravans it was possible she was already dead, dehydration taking around a week to kill someone. And that was if he’d kept her alive in the first place.

  DC Allan shuddered against the cold, the image of Mary-Beth King’s decomposing body contributing to the chill inside his thick, lined police jacket.

  ‘Okay, everybody.’ DS Harvey’s booming voice pulled Allan back to the search. ‘We’re going to do this in quadrants. The occupants of every caravan are to be taken to the club, which the owners have very kindly heated up, and where hot drinks are being provided. Let’s not ruffle any feathers here, it’s highly unlikely – given that our only suspect is dead – that any of these holidaymakers are involved, so let them get their warm clothes on before chucking them out of their vans. It makes sense to do any empty vans first. The owners have given us a list of those that should be unoccupied and I’ve highlighted the ones in each quadrant.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a van registered to Tristan Patterson on that list, guv?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Bloody hell, Stuart, I hadn’t thought to check that. Good job you’re here, isn’t it?’ Harvey retorted sarcastically, and feeling thankful he’d already checked there was no van registered to Tristan, Janet or Mike Patterson. ‘No, there’s no Patterson caravan. Team five – you’re scouring the surrounding areas and undergrowth. There’s no guarantee she’s even in a caravan – or alive. And don’t assume we’re looking for a woman here, we could be looking at nearly four-week-old remains. Off you go.’

  DC Allan was on team five, checking the undergrowth surrounding the campsite. Harvey had made him team leader, given all his work on the case. He stood now at the back of the incident van with a large map of the area in front of him.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked, pointing at a square on the map, located in the far corner of the site grounds.

  ‘Looks like some kind of storage shed,’ one of his team remarked.

  ‘Go and get the owners for me,’ Allan replied, his heart beginning to thump. ‘I want this checked out first.’

  The owner, a ruddy-faced woman named Caroline, was at his side in minutes. ‘That’s where we used to store the kitchen equipment, before we had B block built,’ she confirmed immediately. ‘It’s derelict and locked up. You can’t get in there. Well, I mean, I can – you couldn’t. I have the keys here.’

  ‘Can you take us there?’ Allan asked. ‘We need to check it out.’

  ‘I’d almost forgotten it existed,’ Caroline remarked as she lead them through the field. ‘It’s been over a year since we stored anything we needed access to in it. It’s just full of junk now.’

  ‘Can it be accessed through the back field?’ Allan asked.

  Caroline nodded. ‘If you wanted to, yes.’

  Allan was certain now that they were on to something. ‘I’m guessing Patterson would want to.’

  ‘There, see it?’

  He almost didn’t. This area of the field was on the edge of the site, with trees to the back, and in the darkness the cabin was almost invisible. As they approached Allan could see that the huge bolt locking the door was still in place, and his heart sank. How would Tristan have had keys to this?

  ‘Any spare keys?’ he asked as Caroline searched her bunch for the right one.

  She shook her head. ‘Lucky we’ve still got this one. Like I said, we don’t really use it any more.’

  She struggled with the key in the rusted lock. Allan tried not to show his impatience but his earlier elation was wearing off quickly. When the lock finally gave way, he indicated for two of his team to join him and for Caroline to stand back. He pushed open the door and swung his torch around.

  The storage cabin was, as described, full of junk. An old gas cooker sat rusted and untouched in the corner, piled high with boxes on top. There was a broken lawnmower and a wheelbarrow missing its wheel, a bag of what had once been clothes but was now rotting rags, and one of the bouncy sit-on toys from a playground.

  No Mary-Beth.

  ‘Nothing,’ Allan said, his voice dripping with disappointment.

  ‘Oh God, wait.’ Caroline flung a hand to her mouth. ‘Come with me. There’s more.’

  The three officers trotted to keep up with the woman as she took long, hurried strides out of the door and around to the back of the cabin. Allan couldn’t see what she was getting at until she pointed at the gro
und to reveal steel doors set into the floor.

  ‘It was some kind of bunker originally. The underground bit was used to store rations during some war or other. It’s why we weren’t sure if we could tear it down – you know, history.’

  ‘And is it usually locked?’ Allan asked, shining his torch over the top. There was no lock on it now.

  ‘Bolted, like the front, usually. We didn’t want any kids going in and getting trapped.’

  DC Allan fired up his radio. ‘Sir, team five at a storage unit on the far east side of the grounds. There’s nothing inside but there is an underground section which is supposed to be padlocked. There’s no lock on there now. Permission to go in?’

  Harvey’s voice came loud and clear down the radio. ‘I’m on my way. Wait for me.’

  76

  Harvey left his team and ran east towards where Allan had described the unit. Part of him had expected this to be a wild goose chase, a final game played by Tristan Patterson to get them running all over the campsite in the middle of the night. He was twenty years old – could he really have kidnapped a woman and held her for weeks without anyone noticing? But Harvey knew what kids were capable of, he’d been in the job long enough, which was why he’d mounted a full-scale manhunt the minute the tip had come in. It remained to be seen what would happen to his career now that Erica Spencer’s death had been revealed to be more than an accident. Was there any clue that Tristan had been in that tree house? Should he have pushed further? He had no idea, and no head-space to think about that now. For now he wanted Mary-Beth found before he had even more blood on his hands.

  The torch lights and high-vis jackets lit his way to the cabin, where Allan had followed orders and kept his team outside.

  ‘Good work,’ Harvey said to him, shining his own torch at the hatch. ‘I guess we’d better open it up.’

  The one thing that hit him as he lowered the ladder into the hole was the absolute darkness of the pit he was descending into. Even a day in here alone would surely drive you mad. A week and you’d, well, you’d be confessing to murder.

  He swung his torch around the basement, the beam touching on barrels, more boxes . . .

  Then a foot . . .

  A leg . . .

  A body.

  ‘I’ve got her!’ he shouted up to the team above ground. ‘Get the paramedics here, we’ve found Mrs King!’

  77

  Karla tiptoed around the kitchen, trying not to wake anyone. Marcus and the boys were still comatose in their own beds, Felicity on the blow-up bed in the princess room. Despite Karla insisting that there were plenty of beds for her to use, she’d wanted to be close to the girls in case they woke up in the night and wondered how they’d got there. Alex and Miranda had fallen asleep on the sofa in the snug at around 2 a.m. as they had all waited for news of Mary-Beth. When Peter had eventually texted Felicity to say she was in hospital, but alive and stable, Karla had thrown blankets over the sleeping pair and Marcus had dug out the airbed to put in the girls’ room. They had finally passed out around three, but unfortunately Karla’s body clock didn’t seem to understand that and had woken her at 6:30 a.m. on the dot.

  ‘You couldn’t sleep either, then?’ Felicity’s whispered voice came from the doorway.

  ‘Not a problem for the boys, of course.’

  Felicity smiled. ‘I don’t suppose Peter got much sleep.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to call him Dad now?’ Karla teased.

  Felicity laughed. ‘I don’t think so. Do you think it’s all over now?’

  Karla shrugged. ‘I guess so. Poor Mary-Beth. Do you think Tristan kept her there the whole time? It seems crazy to think he could have done that, he was just a kid.’

  ‘He was only three years younger than me,’ Felicity reminded her.

  ‘God, yeah, sorry. I can’t get used to you being a child.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘Such language in one so young!’

  ‘Funny. So what happens now?’

  Karla handed Felicity a mug of coffee. ‘God knows. I’m still waiting for the police to show up and arrest me for assault. You for . . . I don’t know, kidnapping? I mean, you did lock her in there against her will.’

  Felicity scowled. ‘It’s not funny, Karla. I spent eleven months thinking she’d died because of what I did. If we hadn’t all been so busy covering our own backs we could have convinced the police to investigate properly. None of this would have happened.’

  ‘If Marcus hadn’t sent his lawyer to put pressure on DCI Barrow, you mean. Don’t think I don’t know that, Fliss. I have no idea what happens next. To be honest, I just want to take my family somewhere far away and never hear the words Severn Oaks or Erica Spencer again.’

  ‘At least Brandon is speaking to you again.’

  ‘True. Although I think we have a lot of bridges to build before we can claim to be a “model family” again.’

  ‘Have Marcus’s publishers said what will happen?’

  ‘They’re still talking things through with his agent, but the feeling is that the books that mention his childhood will have to be pulled. To be honest, it’s a bit of a relief. Keeping that kind of lie going is exhausting.’ She looked away from her best friend before speaking again. ‘We’ve been talking about selling up, moving on. The house is all paid off, we could downsize and live on the equity and our savings. We don’t need any of it any more.’

  Felicity sighed. ‘You know I’d hate to see you leave, but I get it. Things aren’t the same around here any more. I don’t think they ever will be again.’

  ‘Maybe that’s a good thing,’ Karla said, as she heard low voices coming from the snug. ‘The way they were before was all just smoke and mirrors anyway.’

  Mary-Beth King was alive. The relief that emanated from DS Harvey had been palpable, another dead body would have been the final nail in the coffin of his career. She had been taken straight to the hospital where she would be looked after, nursed back to health and questioned about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. Perhaps then they would get the truth.

  ‘Harvey, come in.’ The door to DCI Barrow’s office stood open and Harvey made the sign of the cross before entering, an old joke that had turned into a habit.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Good work today, Harvey.’ DCI Fred Barrow stood up and leaned over his desk to shake Harvey’s hand.

  Harvey managed to stop himself from wiping it on his trousers afterwards but it burned, feeling unclean.

  ‘It was actually DC Allan’s quick thinking that led to the recovery of Mrs King,’ Harvey found himself saying. ‘He remembered where the taxi driver claimed to have dropped her off, and found the cellar.’

  ‘So all’s well that ends well,’ Barrow said, a nauseating smile on his face.

  Harvey wanted to punch him.

  ‘Hardly well , sir, a young man is dead.’

  Barrow’s eyebrows rose. ‘A young man responsible for the kidnapping of Mary-Beth King, though, yes?’

  ‘Possibly, yes.’

  Harvey knew what he was saying. They had their case wrapped up. Tristan Patterson kidnapped Mary-Beth King because she threatened to reveal he was the person behind the podcasts. Then, realising that the only way to silence her for ever was to kill her, he left her there in the underground chamber to die, and killed himself. Patterson was the bad guy. Except Harvey believed Allan when he said that not everything added up. Only this time he wasn’t going to go straight to his superior without evidence.

  ‘Any idea how he got her there?’

  ‘He had a notebook belonging to Erica Spencer in his possession when he died. We believe he used the information in the book to lure Mary-Beth to the campsite. We know she got a taxi there and didn’t tell anyone where she was going.’

  ‘That’s that, then. What condition is King in?’

  Harvey recalled the dirty, stinking woman they had pulled from the bunker beneath the abandoned shed on the campsite grounds. The hospital reported
that she was having nightmares, afraid to let the male doctors near her, but there was no sign of sexual abuse – no sign of any abuse at all, for that matter. The basement of the shed had been damp and below freezing, yet Mary-Beth King showed no sign of hypothermia. There had been water bottles and wrappers from cereal bars scattered around the floor, and the stench of urine and faeces had been overpowering, but she was physically unharmed.

  ‘She’s doing better than can be expected. Any news on the Spencer case?’ asked Harvey.

  ‘The CPS are still considering the case, but without Patterson alive – and only that podcast thing as evidence – it’s going to be hard to overturn the original findings. As far as I’m concerned, we don’t have any proof that Erica’s death was anything other than an accident – just like you concluded in the initial investigation.’

  ‘We,’ Harvey countered.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘We concluded in the initial investigation, sir. If I remember rightly, it was you who suggested that we advise that Mrs Spencer’s death was an accident.’

  ‘If you remember rightly,’ DCI Barrow’s voice had an edge to it now, one that Harvey had heard before, ‘and if I remember rightly – and believe me, I do – it is your name on those reports, Harvey.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. I was a trainee DC and I followed the recommendations of my superior. I regret that now, and I believe the initial investigation should be reopened in light of Tristan Patterson’s confession and a full enquiry into the manner of his death—’

  ‘I appreciate your input, DS Harvey. I’ll be recommending that the original death remain classified as an accident and Patterson’s death be recorded as a suicide, but unfortunately it is out of both of our hands now. You can go now.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Harvey muttered.

  ‘Oh, and Harvey?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘If the Spencer investigation is reopened, I’ll deny any accusations that you were pressured into your conclusions. Understood?’